Children's Mercy Hospital and Clinics is part of the Hospital Engagement Network (HEN), a national effort to improve the quality of care and patient safety in pediatric hospitals.

The HEN initiative is an ongoing collaboration between children's hospitals across the U.S. aimed at enhancing safety outcomes in the hospital setting.

Program Goals

Improving the quality and safety of pediatric care

Reducing serious harm

Decreasing the number of hospital readmissions

Minimizing the number of serious safety events

Making health care more affordable by reducing Medicaid costs associated with Children's care

Achieving High Safety Standards

Through this initiative, Children's Mercy will study high-reliability industries - such as nuclear power and aviation - that achieve high safety standards in the face of complex operational hazards. Participating hospitals also focus on the transparent sharing of data, development and use of standardized pediatric process bundles and the use of common tools and techniques to address organizational culture. These efforts aim to reduce harm in 11 health care acquired conditions, including:

Adverse drug events

Catheter-associated urinary tract infections

Central line-associated blood stream infections

Injuries from falls and immobility

Pressure ulcers

Surgical site infections

Ventilator-associated pneumonia

Preventable readmissions

Obstetrical adverse events

Venous thromboembolism

Serious safety events

Defining Pediatric Harm Measures

The HEN is also working to develop definitions for these health care-acquired conditions to for use by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as national definitions for pediatric harm measures.

HEN is part of the Partnership for Patients initiative, a nationwide public-private collaboration to improve the quality, safety, and affordability of health care for Americans, led by the Department of Health and Human Services.